A Note to Parents — how you fit in

Brief excerpts taken from a longer letter in the book

I’ve been a college adviser and professor for 27 years talking with countless students and parents. Yet it wasn’t until my son got to high school that I really understood the conflicts and crises we parents experience in trying to help our kids get the best education possible.

To help my son, I merged my life as a parent with what I had learned from a lifetime of experience as a university academic administrator who developed advising programs. These principles have helped me guide my son, and they can help you too.

Your student’s education is your education
In high school, most teens lack the self-discipline to be given full control over their educational lives. They still need you. Here’s where the balancing act comes in. As a counselor/guide, you must be close to your student at the very time that the typical teen is pushing parents away in order to be more independent.

Just as you control the behavior of teens in other areas of their life — when and where they can go out, when they have to be home, etc. — you should also control their ordinary behavior as students. The 12 strategies in this guidebook describe what that ordinary behavior should be and will give you specific ways to help your older student on a daily basis.

The care, interest, and attention that parents gave to their students’ learning when children were very young apply even more when children get older. However, the way you involve yourself may change. Don’t let any gaps develop between you and your student. Keep saying to yourself, THEIR EDUCATION IS YOUR EDUCATION. After all, you will most likely play a large role in its funding, and let’s face it, it’s a big bill.

Your student’s academic success can ultimately reward you with many options for their educational advancement after high school. High grades and academic recognition translate into college scholarships and grants.

It’s your Guide, too
This guidebook is meant as much for parents as for students. Its aim is to create college smart parents as well as college smart students, and I hope it helps you as much as it did me.

It is not a book that is read once and put down. Student copies and parent copies should be well-thumbed, the result of using the book as an ongoing reference from semester to semester and year to year. Read through the strategies. They will help you and your student become college smart.

View my blog at: areyoureallyreadyforcollege.blogspot.com